by Rj Barker
“They’s keyshan hunters,” said Mevans. “Arakeesian Dread mounted two when I first joined him as lad. They were too slow to load for battles between ships, more for show than aught else. But if they put a bolt in us, we’ll feel it.”
“Let us hope Brekir was right about Jirton’s Isle not wanting to sully it poor reputation, then,” said Joron as Snarltooth was brought to a full stop and the staystone dropped, all in full view of the two huge gallowbows.
“It is for show,” said Mevans, “they cannot be kept under tension for long, and it takes ten deckchilder to spin the Hag-cursed things up.”
“Well, that is a comfort.” He turned at a call from Brekir.
“The pilot has offered to take us ashore to Broomstown, Mistress Cwell,” she said, and there was a strange moment of dislocation for Joron, that Brekir should not be addressing him. “If you would wish it.”
“The sooner I am away from you, the better,” spat Cwell, and Joron put a hand to his face, to hide his smile at the pre-arranged subterfuge, but the smile fell away as soon as he touched the skin of his ruined features. He had no doubt that the words served their purpose, that reports of friction between Cwell and the shipwife of Snarltooth would run ahead of them in the small port. When they boarded the flukeboat, and once more had to pass over coin for the privilege, Joron and Mevans joined Cwell on the rump and Brekir and her deckkeeper, Vulse, went to sit upon the beak, and both small groups glowered at one another until Brekir broke the silence.
“Tell me, Pilot, is the Mother’s Pot still a good place for a shipwife to stay?”
“Ey,” said the pilot, a small woman, old and sturdy with a scar down her face and only three fingers on the hand which grasped the steering oar. “I can put in a word with Ostir who runs it.”
“For a price?” said Brekir. The pilot grinned, showing a mouth with more gum than tooth.
“Is always for a price.”
“Then,” said Cwell, “tell me where a woman may stay if she wanted to avoid a good place for a shipwife to stay.” Cwell glared down the boat at Brekir. “And name your price.”
“That would be in the Maiden’s Skirts…” The pilot left a gap for Cwell to fill in her name.
“Cwell,” came the reply, “Cwell Cahanny.” She leaned over, holding out a coin but the pilot held up a hand.
“That’s a known name,” she said. “You keep your penny, bonny lass, and remember my name is Huld and maybe one day you can do old Huld a favour, ey?”
“I have a good memory for names, Huld, and am well disposed to them that treat me well.”
“Well, you remember old Huld then,” she said, and sat in the boat with her back to Brekir as they rowed toward shore, the oars beating the black water, sending silver ripples out into the harbour and stirring up angry clouds of tiny luminescent creatures. Joron turned to watch the glow die away in the black water behind them. That is where we all go, he thought, that is all we are. A brief light in the darkness, destined to be swallowed up by the sea.
26
The Passage
They spent four days on Jirton’s Isle. Cwell was put up in the Maiden’s Skirts, living in luxury while Joron and Mevans stayed in the servants’ quarters, little better than an animal shelter. During the day they walked through Broomstown with Cwell, and a number of loud and cruel-sounding altercations were had with Brekir, including a fight between Mevans and one of Brekir’s deckchilder, which was not entirely planned but something Mevans said the woman had coming to her and her beating was well deserved, though he hardly escaped unscathed himself. Joron was unsure who, exactly, had received the worst of it.
The approach was made on the morning of the third day. A woman came to Joron while he tried to sleep and fend off the cold of morning; she had stayed the night and lain near him in the shelter.
“Servant,” she said. “You listen to me, servant.”
“Ey,” he said, and the day was still bleary, still unfocused and he awash with his own tiredness. “Who would speak?”
“My name don’t matter none,” said the woman, and she wiped at her face with her sleeve, sniffed up mucus from a growing season cold. “Just that there are those in this town who may well have noticed your mistress and that shipwife don’t get on none too well.” Sleep, still a fog between him and his thoughts.
“Water,” he said. More to buy time than anything. He must not appear desperate, must not give away their need or desire. He yawned, hissing in pain as the skin around his ulcers stretched and the scabs that had formed overnight on his broken flesh cracked once more.
“The rot brings a thirst,” she said, “I’ve heard others say it.” She walked away and returned with a mug. He reached out for it and she pulled it back. “I’ll pour it into your mouth; if it touches your lip no other will drink from it.” He nodded, and opened his mouth, let her pour in water.
“Thank you.”
“My father took bad from the rot, died raving and screaming. I’ll not touch ee, but I’ll not be cruel either.” Joron nodded.
“What do you want?”
“Where is yorn other fella?” Joron looked around, saw Mevans’s blankets empty. Shrugged.
“He sleeps badly, often gets up and walks around. He is not a servant, merely another traveller and offered to keep the mistress safe in exchange for passage.” He tried to smile at the woman. “You have seen how it is between her and the shipwife.”
“But she still travels with her?”
“What choice do we have, ey? She served the Black Pirate, see, but they fell out. Now she is to be exiled. I think she plans to find some way to return to Bernshulme.”
“A risky destination, for someone who crewed with the Black Pirate,” she said. Joron pushed himself up, looked around at the other sleeping bodies. Wondered how many pretended sleep and lowered his voice – though in truth, the more spies heard the better.
“It is,” he said. “But the mistress is related to Cahanny, see. She’s been trying to get off her ship for as long as I’ve known her.” He smiled to himself, for it was almost true.
“Mulvan Cahanny?” said the woman, her show of surprise poor.
“Ey, that’s him.” The woman shuffled nearer, she was missing two teeth from the side of her mouth and the rest were black with either rot or staining from some foodstuff. Her breath did not smell of rot and he wondered what tasted good enough for someone to choose such a disfigurement. “I am deckkeeper on a brownbone, name of Keyshan’s Eye, see,” she said. “I am Mrin, and my shipwife – well, let us say we have reason to visit Bernshulme, and a belief that we will be let in if we do. Should your mistress want to make passage, then we leave tonight. But my shipwife would speak to your mistress first.”
“They can come to her rooms.”
“No, I reckon that Brekir has them watched. Meet us behind the old flensing huts, to the west of town when Skearith’s Eye looks straight down upon us all.”
“Very well,” he said, and the woman nodded, looking around before leaving. When Mevans returned he found a quiet place to tell the man what had been said. Then they waited for Cwell to appear, for though Mevans was allowed in the Maiden’s Skirts, Joron, due to the rot, was not. Mevans had been so incensed by this that he had almost come to blows with the woman who kept the place and had since sworn to never set foot within it. So they sat, and Mevans put a mark upon his bone knife and held it up so he could see how fast the gion and varisk grew.
“Best way to know the season’s weather,” he said. “For good or ill.”
“News?” They looked up. Cwell stood above them, dressed well in red fishskin and purple feather sashes hung with crossbows.
“Meeting at High Eye,” said Mevans. Cwell glanced up, squinting into the blue sky.
“Not long, should have come in and got me.”
“You know my feelings on that place.”
“Ey,” said Cwell, “though I think the woman reckoned you my lover and was jealous. She knows better now.”
&n
bsp; “I’ll still not go in.”
“Please yourself, the anhir is good though.”
“We have a meeting to get to,” said Mevans without looking, and Joron had to suppress a laugh for he saw the war on the man’s face between his pride and his love of good alcohol. He held up his knife, ignoring Cwell and checking the growth of the jungles squirming up around the town.
“Come then, servants,” she said, and they set off.
The old flensing yards, as ever for such places, were deserted and it took them longer than they had imagined to get there, the gion and varisk blocking every path and having to be hacked down with curnows and brute force. When they arrived the huts were barely worthy of their name, a few old uprights were all that remained. The woman he had talked to earlier was there with another taller and better-dressed woman.
“Well, it is indeed Cwell,” she said, looking her up and down. “Looks like life has treated you better than I thought.”
“Ansiri? I had thought the sea would have taken you long ago.” Cwell crossed the space and clasped hands with the woman.
“Take more than the sea to kill me,” she said. “We all thought you had put in your lot with the Black Pirate.”
“I made myself useful, is all. But have fallen from favour I must admit. He has had a good run, but cannot survive much longer and you know me, Ansiri, I am a survivor.” Ansiri nodded. “My uncle will pay you well, if you can return me to Bernshulme,” she said.
“He may,” said Ansiri. “He may not though, you can never tell and much has changed. I will require upfront payment for your passage.”
“I would not expect any less,” said Cwell. Then the two women fell to haggling, eventually agreeing a price that Joron found exorbitant as it was almost all of what coin they had, but he could say nothing about it.
“One other thing,” said Ansiri, “the rot-cursed one, you can’t bring him. I’ll not have someone running mad on my deck. A madman aboard brings the Hag down on a ship, all know that.” Joron felt colder than the day warranted. Cwell glanced at him and smiled but it was not a friendly smile, and though he had sworn never to doubt her, he found that oath hard to keep in the moment.
“He is Hundred Isles born,” said Cwell, “and I owe him my own life, see. I have promised he can be laid to rest in the soil of his birth and you know how important Cahanny believes a promise, ey?”
“Your promise, not mine.”
“I will add to the price, by one tenth,” she said. “And I give you my promise, Shipwife Ansiri, if he shows any signs of madness I will throw him over for the longthresh myself.” Ansiri glanced at Joron. Then back to Cwell.
“Very well then. Pack your bags, then go for a walk around the town and I will have my people remove your belongings to my ship. Be at the docks when Skearith’s Blind Eye is over the shoulder. My flukeboat will bring you aboard.” She took off her hat and rubbed sweat from her brow. “Do you think the shipwife is likely to give chase?”
“She may,” said Cwell. “I know much of the Black Pirate’s doings. But I think it more likely she will be glad to see the back of me.”
“Well,” said Ansiri, “Keyshan’s Eye is not as fast as a fleet ship, but I know enough tricks to get us away quick, and the harbourwoman will delay them as much as possible, of that I am sure. So we’ll be over the horizon afore that black ship is after us if we do it right. You get back and pack.” Cwell gave the shipwife a nod.
“Come then, Servant,” she said, “there is work to do.”
“I think, D’keeper,” whispered Mevans to him as they made their way back to the forest path, “she enjoys saying that a little too much.”
“Ey,” said Joron with a smile, and he drew his curnow and hacked at the forest, starting the task of clearing the path back to Broomtown, “but we get little enough joy in this life, let her get her pleasure where she will.”
When they were back in the town Cwell returned to her rooms, to gather her few belongings and put on the clothes they had sewn money into to keep it safe. In the servants’ quarters Joron and Mevans put together their own few things and tied scraps of red material round those they could not carry with them. That done Joron wrote a note for Brekir and they made their way to one of the drinking houses frequented by the shipwife’s crew. There Mevans got into an argument with a woman named Fontir, and Joron had to drag him away before the two came to blows. The owner of the house had them thrown out, with instruction never to come back again.
“You passed over the message?” whispered Joron as he dragged away Mevans, shouting abuse at the closed door behind them.
“Hag take you all!” shouted Mevans. Then turned away and let Joron see his smile before whispering, “Ey, Fontir will pass it to the shipwife.”
That done there was little else they could do but wait by the door of the Maiden’s Skirts for Skearith’s Eye to dip beneath the horizon. Joron watched the shadows slowly lengthening, creeping toward his feet while Mevans continued to measure the jungle with his knife. When night finally fell Joron looked to Mevans.
“How fast does it grow?”
“Fast,” he said quietly. “As fast as I have ever seen.”
“Bad news,” said Joron, “you always say that.”
“Ey,” said Mevans, “’tis a savage season coming, a savage season like no other.” He looked away and Joron wondered at that, for it seemed since he had come to the deck of Tide Child, every season had been savage.
They waited in the darkness, and soon Cwell joined them.
“They not here yet?” she said. “If the Hag-cursed wastrels have done nothing but steal our chest I’ll hunt every one down and feed them to the longthresh.”
“There’ll be no need of that,” said a voice from the shadows and Mrin appeared. “Come, we have to trek over the island and it will take us an hour.”
“Your shipwife said we would take a flukeboat,” said Cwell.
“Ey, but yorn black ship is there, and no doubt watching,” said Mrin. “So she changed her mind. This way they will not even know you are gone. Keyshan’s Eye is waiting, and your goods are aboard.”
“’Tis a good place for an ambush, the gion forest,” said Cwell.
“Ey,” said Mrin, “it is. But if we wanted your goods we would just leave with ’em.”
Cwell nodded. “There is that,” she said, “but I am not a woman given to trust, so if I think you betray us,” she took a small crossbow from her sash and cocked it, “you die first.”
“That is fair,” said Mrin. “Now follow me.” She led them through the small town and at the edge of the gion forest a small group waited. “Three of our deckchilder, two fellow travellers,” said Mrin.
“This was not mentioned.”
“’Tis not yorn business,” said Mrin. “Now, do you come or not?” Her deckchilder started hacking at the edge of the forest and Cwell glanced back at Joron, who shrugged. Cwell nodded in return and led them into the darkness.
It was louder in the night, the beasts of the forest more aggrieved by this intrusion into their territory, their life. Joron shuddered, images of the tunir filling his mind. Such beasts would be impossible to see in the night and, as he swung with his curnow, cutting through the vegetation, he found he was doing it in a rhythm, starting to hum. As he hummed he heard a song starting up behind him, Mevans joining in and then Cwell. One of those they travelled with looked at them, a strange look, a worried one, and Joron felt as if some vast eye was suddenly turned on him. As if some great creature suddenly realised he existed. He stopped humming, his mouth dry, he coughed.
“Mrin,” he said, “does this island have a windspire?”
“Ey,” she said, “a small one mind, but it does. Why, have you suddenly grown feathers instead of sores, and wish to commune with the winds in your madness?”
“No,” he said. “Was just idle curiosity.”
“Good,” said Mrin, “would be a trial for me if I had to put out your eyes, ey?”
Joron did not
reply and they broke from the forest at that moment. Two flukeboats were drawn up in the sharp sand before them and Joron, without boots as befit a servant, felt the sand cut into the sole of his foot as he made his way across the beach. He climbed into the flukeboat and the deckchilder around him pushed off. He turned from the island and looked to the brownbone waiting on the placid sea. Well, he thought. Once I set foot on that boat, there is no turning back. They sculled across placid black water, to an old boat that stank of rotting bone and ill-kept gion and varisk, and when they hauled him aboard, he left bloody footprints on the deck behind him.
27
The Deckchilder
The kindest thing that Joron could say about the passage from Broomstown on Jirton’s Isle to Bernshulme on Shipshulme aboard the Keyshan’s Eye was that it was shorter than he had thought it would be. He spent the long weeks of the passage as deckchilder, Cwell was found a cabin and Joron became what he had thought he should have been all his life. One of the common women and men, part of the muscle mass that propelled a ship across the ocean. Working to stay afloat and keep them safe from the creatures of the sea that would rend and chew and rip and tear whatever warm flesh made contact with the water, staining the blue red with spilled life.
Much to Joron’s dismay he found out he made a very poor deckchild. He lacked the strength that was common to crew, common to women and men who spent every waking moment pulling and heaving and twisting and brushing and mending. He tired quickly, found himself stumbling while those around him had no trouble carrying on. His peg was not the same as his bone spur – it made him slow, it ruined his balance and climbing the rigging of Keyshan’s Eye was an impossibility. Though Cwell had said he was a man rated as deckchild, it had quickly become clear to all that he was not. The ship’s deckkeeper, Mrin, had taken great joy in berating him for his slowness, for his slovenly ways, for his inability to do the simplest of tasks. The deckmother, a woman called Jimry, had followed him round the ship for an entire afternoon picking at every task he had attempted, telling him just how he had failed, though Joron was sure he had done at least some of them to a competent level, if not an expert one. But he was not fast enough, not exact enough, and in the end he was simply not enough. Had he been actual crew of Keyshan’s Eye he would have had the skin corded from his back, and only Cwell’s intervention had stopped him being put on punishment rations by a frustrated deckmother who, he knew, wanted nothing more than to take out her frustration on him with her fists.
